Bristol Old Vic

And I'd also kind of been.

a lot of amateur theatre as a kid and did plays and musicals and everything and I just it I think for me there was a little bit of a hesitation anyway the place that I went to that I walked out of was in London I was also offered a place at Bristol Old Vic I didn't take and I grew up in Southampton so I thought I didn't want to go to

Bristol Bristol's gonna be like Southampton I'm gonna go to London right yeah

and you know those kind of sliding door moments yes I think I thing it may well have been a completely different um trajectory that i went off on had i gone to bristol but i didn't

There's pros and cons to the things, right? So being able to do self-tapes is great because you can do that from home, so that's actually accessible to people, but at the same time, it's not accessible if you're having to then be...

the producer, lighting, sound, editor to put all these scenes together and the time that they give you so yeah I think we need to be having more conversations about any sort of what the arts is going to be like if we actually consider access and that's why I'm really enjoying the work that I'm doing which I'm trying to put more of my energy into which is more disability led because for that as well it's been super interesting because it's not just about this finished piece, like I just did a show at Bristol Old Vic in January.

I did a show at the beginning of the year at Bristol Old Vic, and that was through Cryptic Arts.

I love this team so much.

Imagine, all disabled team.

He advises the government as part of a panel, sharing his thoughts and guidance on independent living.

He also acts with a theatre company attached to the Bristol Old Vic.

Jake's been coached by Shaftesbury fitness and swimming instructor Laura Wild from the Wild Shark Swim Club, alongside his friend 18-year-old Sam Craddock from Dorchester.

The pair are competing in Birmingham over the next few days.

You were credited by, uh, an actress called Michaela Coel, who thanked you when she was receiving her Best Actress BAFTA in 2021, saying, "Thank you for your existence in our industry, for the making the space safe at last for physical and professional boundaries," so that they can do the work that they're there to do without it being totally awkward.

Even in my own career, we trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

When we met a few months ago, and it was Fiona Francom at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School mentioned you, and I thought, "Gosh, what an interesting guest to have in the show to talk about Intimacy on Set." And we have the Central School of Speech and Drama in common as well.

So yes, as I said, I had my own very awkward time once upon a time on set, where it was just left as a bit of an afterthought, and I was being straddled at the time by Sean Bean's soon-to-be ex-wife Georgina Sutcliffe.

It was very well-intended, but it was so based on trust and just awkward, "Hope this is okay." So that's what's so incredibly important about the work that you do.

How could you do Fight Club without someone choreographing those amazing fights? How could Tom Cruise do those amazing stunts of dropping down from a helicopter and running across roofs and, without someone conceiving it? The producers hearing the director's vision, connecting with the stunt coordinator, listening to what's wanted, all that preparation put in place.

Skills taught to the actor, so if they don't know how to do a brilliant fight, if they haven't got the techniques.

Well, if you and I both going to Bristol Old Vic, the marvelous John Howell, deep joy, deep joy-

Wow.

Yeah, in Bristol Old Vic, close, fairly close to where we are now.

Wow.

Som- somewhat.

So why did I care what they thought, which is very, um, disrespectful, but you know, again, you're young.

Um, but in that audience at that, um, house drama competition was a, uh, I think he was a producer or director, um, who lived in the village and I afterwards my mum and dad got a phone call from him saying would I go round to meet him and I didn't know who he was or what he wanted so I went round to their house and he sort of sat me down he'd said you know his daughter was in the play apparently um And he just told me how great it was and that I should think about going to Bristol Old Vic or something like that, which at that time I went, I don't want to go to Bristol, so I'm not going to go to the Bristol Old Vic.

But it was just this adult that wasn't family going.

That was really impressive.

And then the week before, I saw something that was like an aural ballet.

It was a one-person show that came out of the Bristol Old Vic.

Nice.

And it just won the Olivier.

Yes.

She, she starts off at the Bristol Old Vic, where she trained in theater school.

She played major roles there, and then came to the West End.

In, in the '70s she was in major plays by Alan Ayckbourn, Alan Bennett, and, um, um, John Mortimer, Voyager and my father.